Here are two belonging to an even more civilized order! Allow me to take you into the room of the absent street acrobat. A bed of painted wood, without curtains, bedbug-stained blankets trailing on the floor, two rush-seated chairs, a cast-iron stove, one or two broken musical instruments. What sad furnishings! But look, if you will, at these two intelligent figures, dressed in worn but sumptuous garments, with troubadours’ or soldiers’ caps, watching with a wizard’s attentiveness the nameless work simmering on the lighted stove, and in the middle of which a long spoon stands upright, like one of those mid-air masts that mark the completion of a building.
Isn’t it right that such keen actors should not set out without having put something solid in their stomachs: a powerful, thick soup? And won’t you forgive a little sensual yearning in these poor devils who have to spend all day facing the indifference of the public and the unjust treatment of a director who takes the lion’s share for himself and eats up more soup than four actors put together?
How often I have watched, smiling and touched, all those four-legged philosophers, indulgent slaves, submissive or devoted, whom the republican dictionary could also call dutiful, if only the republic, too busy with the happiness of the citizens, could find time to show respect for the honour of dogs!
And how often I have thought that perhaps somewhere (who knows, after all) there was a reward for such courage, such patience and hard work, a special paradise for the good dogs, the poor dogs, the dirty, muddy, sad and sorry dogs. After all, Swedenborg says there is one for Turks and one for Dutchmen!
The shepherds in Virgil and Theocritus hoped their amoebean verses would win them a good cheese, a flute from the best maker or a she-goat with swollen udders. The poet who sang the praises of the good dogs received as his reward a beautiful waistcoat of a colour both rich and faded which recalls autumn suns, the beauty of mature women and Indian summers.
No one who was present in the tavern in the rue Villa-Hermosa will forget the impetuous dash with which the painter stripped off his waistcoat to give it to the poet, so well did he understand that it was a good and honourable thing to sing the praises of poor dogs.
Even so a magnificent Italian tyrant, in the good old days, would give to the divine Aretino perhaps a dagger set with jewels, or a court mantle, in exchange for a precious sonnet or a curious satirical poem.
And every time the poet puts on the painter’s waistcoat, he cannot but think of the good dogs, the dog philosophers, of Indian summers and of the beauty of women well past their prime.
GLOSSARY
ANDROMAQUE. Andromache, wife of Hector in the Iliad, also known to French readers as the heroine of one of Racine’s greatest plays. After the sack of Troy she was taken prisoner by Pyrrhus and later, in some versions of the story, was married off to Helenus. In 53, Baudelaire is following Virgil, Aeneid III, 294–318.
ANTIOPE. Antiope, in Greek legend, was an Amazon defeated by Hercules. But the definite article in 78 (l’Antiope) suggests rather a painting of Antiope, probably by Correggio, Watteau or Ingres.
ANTOINE. In Christian legend this saint, a desert hermit, was tempted by various alluring visions. ‘The Temptations of St Anthony’ was a favoured subject in sixteenth-century painting, and surfaces again in French writing of the nineteenth century. Flaubert wrote two prose narratives called La Tentation de Saint Antoine.
ARETINO. Pietro Aretino (1492–1556), Italian poet and prose writer, satirist and pornographer.
BOUCHER. François Boucher (1703–70), painter of elegant, often erotic subjects.
BUFFON. Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707–88), naturalist, author of the monumental Histoire naturelle. His measured, elaborate and polished style gave rise to the legend that he never wrote without putting on full, formal dress, including lace jabot and wrist frills.
CAPOUE. Capua, near Naples. Hannibal delayed there instead of marching on Rome; hence, proverbially, a city of comfort and pleasure.
CARROUSEL. The Place du Carrousel, between the Louvre and the Tuileries palace (now the Tuileries garden) was opened up in 1852 by demolishing several streets of old buildings.
CÉLIMÈNE. Fashionable, flirtatious heroine of Molière’s play Le Misanthrope.
CIRCÉ. Circe, an enchantress in the Odyssey who turned men into animals.
CONFITEOR. ‘I confess’. Opening word of the general confession of sins in the Mass, it can also be a profession of faith, as in the Creed (confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum, ‘I confess one baptism for the remission of sins’).
CRÉSUS. Croesus, King of Lydia (sixth century BC). Proverbial for his riches. Hence un Crésus, a very rich man.
CUL-DE-LAMPE. Engraved illustration, usually coming at the end of a chapter.
CYBÈLE. Cybele, often called ‘the Mother of the Gods’ or ‘the Great Mother’, was the personification of nature’s powers of growth.
CYTHÈRE. Cythera, an island near Crete, site of a temple to Venus. Proverbially the abode of love. ‘The Embarkation for Cythera’, a favoured subject for painters, notably Watteau (1684–1721), stood metaphorically for the beginning of a love affair.
DAVID. When David, King of Israel, was ‘old and stricken in years’, his servants sought a young girl to ‘lie in his bosom’ and warm him back to life (I Kings i, 2).
DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI. ‘Out of the depths have I cried…’ Opening words of Psalm 130. It is always said or sung as part of the Catholic funeral service, and the words De profundis appear on many funeral notices, including Baudelaire’s own.
DIVA, SUPPLICEM EXAUDI. ‘Goddess, hear your votary’s prayer.’
DU CAMP, MAXIME. Writer (1822–94). Friend of Flaubert, whom he accompanied on his journey to Egypt in 1849–50.
ÉLECTRE. Electra. In Greek legend and tragedy the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, sister and faithful nurse to Orestes in his madness, wife to Pylades.
ÉPONINE. Eponina, Gaulish heroine, personification of virtue and marital devotion, was executed with her husband by the Romans in AD 78.
ÉRÈBE. Erebus, son of Chaos and Night, personified the darkness of the underworld. L’Erèbe, literary synonym for the underworld.
ESCHYLE. Aeschylus, ancient Greek tragedian.
EX-VOTO. Carving or small picture, usually in a precious material, hung before a shrine or image to commemorate a vow or show gratitude for prayers answered. The images of 41 imitate closely the iconography of the Virgin in Spanish painting.
F. N. Felix Nadar (1820–1910), caricaturist, pioneer photographer and balloonist.
FRASCATI. A gambling-house, restaurant and dancehall of this name was fashionable in Paris in the early years of the century; it closed in 1837.
GAVARNI. Lithographer and cartoonist (1804–66), he created and depicted fashionable female types. See Baudelaire’s essay ‘Quelques caricaturistes français’.
GUYS, CONSTANTIN. Artist and draughtsman (1805–92), he depicted fashionable Parisian life as well as reporting the Crimean War for the Illustrated London News. Baudelaire expressed great admiration for him in his long essay ‘Le Peintre de la vie moderne’.
HARPAGON. Central character of Molière’s L’Avare (The Miser).
HERCULE. Hercules, hero of Greek and Roman mythology, is said, as a baby, to have strangled two huge snakes which attacked him in his cradle.
HÉAUTONTIMOROUMÉNOS. ‘The self-torturer’ (Greek). Title of a comedy by Terence, Roman dramatist.
HERMÈS. 1. Hermes, the messenger of the gods in Greek myth. 2. Hermes Trismegistus, name given to the Egyptian god Thoth by Greek settlers, who ascribed to him the invention of alchemy.
HIPPOGRIFFE. Hippogriff, a mythical flying horse in medieval romances of chivalry and in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso.
ICARE. Icarus. In Greek legend he tried to fly with wings made of feathers and wax. The sun’s rays melted the wax and he fell into the sea which was afterwards named after him.
ICARIE. Icaria, the island on which Icarus was buried.
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sp; J. G. F. It is not known to whom these initials refer, though Baudelaire also dedicated Les Paradis artificiels to her, saying that she had been another Electra (q.v.) to him in his sufferings.
LE JUIF ERRANT. The Wandering Jew. Christian legend tells how he refused to help Jesus on his way to crucifixion, and as a result was condemned to wander the earth, alone, for ever.
LAÏS. Lais, celebrated Greek courtesan (fifth century BC).
LAZARE. Lazarus, raised from the dead by Jesus Christ. When Jesus offers to raise Lazarus, his sister Martha objects, ‘Lord, by this time he stinketh; for he hath been dead four days’ (John xi, 39).
LÉTHÉ. Lethe, a river in the underworld. The dead drank its water to forget their past lives.
MÉGÈRE. Megaera, one of the three Furies of Greek myth. Hence French une mégère, a shrewish woman.
MICHEL-ANGE. Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564), painter, sculptor and architect. His statue of Night is in the Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo, Florence.
MIDAS. Midas, a king in Greek legend who asked for and received the power of turning everything he touched into gold.
MINTURNES. Minturnae, Roman city surrounded by marshes.
MOESTA ET ERRABUNDA. ‘Sad and wandering’ (Latin).
MOÏSE. Moses. He struck the rock to produce water for the Israelites in the desert (Exodus xvii, 5–6).
OVIDE. Ovid, Roman poet (43 BC–AD 16). His Tristia are a lament for his exile from Rome. ‘L’homme d’Ovide’ (53) refers to a passage in his Metamorphoses (ll. 84–5) where he says that man, unlike the other animals, has been given the privilege of holding his head high and is commanded to lift his face to the stars.
PHÉNIX. The Phoenix, in classical myth, was a fabulous bird which in old age burnt itself on a pyre and was reborn from its own ashes.
PHOEBÉ. Phoebe, the Moon (Greek).
PHOEBUS. Another name for Apollo, the god of music, poetry and light. In 3 it replaces (in 1861) ‘le soleil’ (the sun).
PLUVIÔSE. One of the months (January-February) of the French revolutionary calendar, its name suggests ‘rainy’ (pluvieux), and here perhaps also Jupiter Pluvius, the Roman god of rain.
POMONE. Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruits and orchards. Statues of mythological subjects had been popular garden decorations from the sixteenth century onwards; in the nineteenth, plaster copies of the stone or terracotta originals were mass-produced to meet expanding demand.
PROSERPINE. Proserpina, Roman form of the Greek Persephone, virgin daughter of Demeter abducted to the underworld by Hades. She was allowed to return to earth each year for a period which coincided with the revival of vegetation in the spring.
PYLADE. Pylades, friend of Orestes in Greek legend; type of the faithful friend.
RENÉ. René is the hero of an extremely influential short fiction (1805) by Chateaubriand, who in his later Mémoires d’outre-tombe described his youthful passion for a Sylphide, a fairy-like being born of his own imagination.
ROQUEPLAN. Nestor Roqueplan, theatre director and drama critic (1804–70).
SAINTE-BEUVE. Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804–69), poet, novelist and influential critic.
SALOMON. Solomon, Biblical King of Israel. An apocryphal work, the Clavicules (‘Little Keys’) was attributed to him. In 81 there is a pun on clavicules, meaning collar-bones.
SED NON SATIATA. ‘But not satisfied’. The wording recalls Juvenal’s description of the Empress Messalina coming home ‘lassata viris, necdum satiata’ (‘exhausted by men, but not yet satisfied’ – Satires vi, 130).
SIMOÏS. Simois, a river near Troy. Virgil describes Andromache, exiled in Epirus, weeping for her husband on the banks of a river which recalled the Simois, falsi Simoentis ad undam (Aeneid III, 294–318). Baudelaire originally used this phrase as an epigraph to his poem.
SISYPHE. Sisyphus, whose punishment in the underworld was endlessly to roll a heavy stone uphill.
STERNE. Lawrence Sterne (1713–68), an English novelist much admired by French writers of Baudelaire’s generation. The incident of the donkey and the macaroon appears in his Tristram Shandy.
STEVENS, JOSEPH. Belgian painter. His Intérieur de saltimbanque inspired poem 102, and he did give Baudelaire a fine waistcoat.
STYX. One of the rivers of the underworld; proverbially dark and gloomy.
SWEDENBORG. Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772). Swedish writer, exponent of unorthodox religious ideas, much read in France in the Romantic period.
TARTUFE. Tartuffe, hypocritical central character in Molière’s play Tartuffe. Proverbial name for a hypocrite.
TE DEUM. A hymn of praise, beginning Te Deum laudamus (‘We praise Thee, o God’), usually sung in ceremonies of celebration. In 5, encenser (to cense) also means to praise fulsomely, hence jouer de l’encensoir, to flatter unworthy objects.
THEOCRITUS. Greek poet (third century BC), writer of idylls and inventor of the pastoral mode.
THALIE. Thalia, Muse of comedy. Hence ‘prêtresse de Thalie’, an actress (in pretentious journalistic language).
TIVOLI. 1. Tivoli, a small town near Rome, famous for the temples and villas which surround it. 2. In 55, a commercial pleasure-garden in Paris named after the town.
TORNÉO. A river in Sweden.
VÉNUSTRE. An illiterate pronunciation of Vénus.
VESTALE. A vestal virgin (Roman history). Proverbial for their chastity and retired life.
VEUILLOT. Louis Veuillot (1813–83), prolific Catholic journalist and polemicist, notorious for his use of slang and clichés. Surprisingly, a friend of Baudelaire.
INDEX OF TITLES AND FIRST LINES
Abel et Caïn 126
A Celle qui est Trop Gaie 149
Ah! ne ralentis pas tes flammes 173
A la très chère, à la très belle 156
Alchimie de la Douleur 79
Andromaque, je pense à vous! Ce petit fleuve 85
Ange plein de gaieté, connaissez-vous l’angoisse 45
Anges revêtus d’or, de pourpre et d’hyacinthe 187
Any Where out of the World 205
Aujourd’hui l’espace est splendide 113
Au Lecteur 3
A une Heure du Matin 199
A une Madone 66
Avec ses vêtements ondoyants et nacrés 25
Bientôt nous plongerons dans les froides ténèbres 64
Bizarre déité, brune comme les nuits 24
Ce ne seront jamais ces beautés de vignettes 16
C’est la Mort qui console, hélas! et qui fait vivre 133
Chanson d’Après-midi 68
Chant d’Automne 64
Comme un beau cadre ajoute à la peinture 39
Comme un bétail pensif sur le sable couchées 114
Confession 47
Connais-tu, comme moi, la douleur savoureuse 135
Dans les caveaux d’insondable tristesse 37
Dans les planches d’anatomie 98
Dans les plis sinueux des vieilles capitales 92
Dans ma cervelle se promène 54
De ce ciel bizarre et livide 80
De ce terrain que vous fouillez 99
De ce terrible paysage 104
De Profundis Clamavi 30
De sa fourrure blonde et brune 56
Dis-moi, ton cœur parfois s’envole-t-il, Agathe 70
Du temps que la Nature en sa verve puissante 17
Epigraphe pour un Livre Condamné 169
Epilogue 186
Femmes Damnées 114
Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves 89
Harmonie du Soir 50
Harpagon, qui veillait son père agonisant 162
Horreur Sympathique 80
Hymne 156
Hymne à la Beauté 18
Il est de forts parfums pour qui toute matière 51
Il me semble parfois que mon sang coule à flots 117
Ils marchent devant moi, ces Yeux pleins de lumières 44
J’ai longtemps habité sous de vastes portiques 14
J’aime de vos longs yeux la lumière verdâtre 65
J’aime le souvenir de ces époques nues 7
J’ai plus de souvenirs que si j’avais mille ans 74
Je n’ai pas oublié, voisine de la ville 102
Je n’ai pas pour maîtresse une lionne illustre 183
Je suis belle, ô mortels! comme un rêve de pierre 15
Je suis comme le roi d’un pays pluvieux 76
Je t’adore à l’égal de la voûte nocturne 22
Je te donne ces vers afin que si mon nom 41
Je te frapperai sans colère 81
Je veux bâtir pour toi, Madone, ma maîtresse 66
Je veux te raconter, ô molle enchanteresse 57
J’implore ta pitié, Toi, l’unique que j’aime 30
La Beauté 15
La Chambre Double 194
La Chevelure 20
La Débauche et la Mort sont deux aimables filles 116
La diane chantait dans les cours des casernes 107
La Fin de la Journée 134
La Fontaine de Sang 117
La Géante 17
L’Albatros 6
La Maladie et la Mort font des cendres 40
La Mort des Amants 132
La Mort des Pauvres 133
L’Amour est assis sur le crâne 122
L’Amour et le Crâne 122
La Muse Malade 10
La Muse Vénale 11
La pendule, sonnant minuit 178
La Prière d’un Païen 173
La Rançon 165
La servante au grand cœur dont vous étiez jalouse 102
La sottise, l’erreur, le péché, la lésine 3
La très chère était nue, et, connaissant mon cœur 151
L’aube spirituelle 49
L’Avertisseur 175
La Vie Antérieure 14
Le Balcon 34
Le Beau Navire 57
Le Cadre 39
Le Chat (XXXIV) 33
Le Chat (LI) 54
Le Chien et la Flacon 198
Le cœur content, je suis monté sur la montagne 186
Le Confiteor de l’Artiste 192
Le Crépuscule du Matin 107
Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) Page 22